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“So what do you think this conference will be about?” Evelyn asked.
“I happen to know what it’s about,” Dagny said.
“Well?”
Dagny indicated the conference with a sweep of her forearm.
“This is designed to fight and defeat Partnerism.”
Evelyn felt a chill of fear run through her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the purpose of this conference is to plot a way to reverse Partnerism.”

Money’s Men is Robert Peate‘s sequel to Sisyphus Shrugged. Because it is a direct continuation of the story, it is recommended to read Sisyphus Shrugged first.

AVAILABLE as of September 24, 2017! See Purchase page via link above.

Sisyphus Shrugged depicted America adopting an economic policy called Partnerism. Money’s Men picks up the story where SS leaves off. When the Partnerism law is passed, the forces of avarice and malice do not go quietly. They rebound and redouble their efforts to continue profiting off their fellow human beings. They use Randian arguments and rationalizations to justify their lust for power. Their leader, a charismatic billionaire, leads an effort to coerce America into reversing its reform. From the back cover:

“Though John Galt and his philosophy have been defeated in America’s minds and hearts, the World’s most powerful economic interests will not let their favorite marketplace, the United States of America, change without a fight.”

(It must be stated that Rand herself did not approve of such behavior. My point in depicting this hypocrisy is to show how her words have been used and abused, even twisted to excuse apathy. One of the flaws with her writing and thinking is that it gives rise to such behavior. I can critique both Rand and her twisters in the same work. I feel that makes for a better story, or at least that it did in this case.)

The businesspersons blackmailing America are not trying to destroy America per se so much as return it to a state of unregulated capitalism, but there are different ideas of creation and destruction, freedom and slavery. In the course of my discussions with the World about Rand, I have seen her dismissed by many whose politics agree with mine, to which dismissal I say we ignore someone so influential at our peril. It is not enough to call Rand anti-intellectual, an amateur philosopher, or a footnote to history. She was not anti-intellectual; she was a voracious intellect craving stimulation and seeking to stimulate. She might have been an amateur philosopher, but she advocated for capitalism more clearly than any professional philosopher, politician, or economist. And she is certainly no footnote when so many love and purchase her works. No; we cannot dismiss. We must persuade, and to do so means addressing error head on without insult. The novels Sisyphus Shrugged and Money’s Men constitute arguments against Rand in her chosen medium: fiction.

Money’s Men features the ultimate Randian villain leading a boycott of America in response to the reforms introduced in Sisyphus Shrugged.

For more information about Money’s Men and how to order a copy, please follow the links in the black bar across the top of this page.

Money’s Men is on Facebook here. I also have my own author page on Facebook. Stop by and say hi.

Robert Peate

SPECIAL POST-2016-ELECTION NOTE:

Like the rest of the World, I was devastated and alarmed by Donald Trump’s fluke/”accidental” electoral victory, which overturned everything we held dear–a hundred years of progress were threatened.

This story, which I began in Sisyphus Shrugged, has been called a prophecy, because everything I imagined as a nightmare scenario was on the verge of coming true, but all I did was pay attention to what they said and did and project what they would do if they could. Thanks to Donald J. Trump, they could.

The Preston Penningtons of the World found their champion, but Donald Trump was worse in two ways: he was domestic not foreign, and he was real. His victory and my novel, I am sorry to say, combined to form the most horrifying coincidence of my life. At the same time and in an odd way, I consider my work cathartic in light of what I call “the Trumpocalypse”.